COVID-19 Policymaking: The Influence of Mobilizations, Popular Attitudes and Expert Groups

The COVID-19 pandemic created an emergency situation, often translated into national laws, where governments had to react quickly to prevent social, health, and economic collapse. As former cohabiting countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia approached the management of the pandemic differently. One reason for this divergence was that, during the pandemic outbreak, the Czech Republic was governed by an outgoing government, whereas Slovakia had elections just before the pandemic. These elections resulted in the victory of political parties, except for one, lacking experience in governance, let alone dealing with a pandemic. In Slovakia, it wasn't uncommon for the strongest ruling party, through its chair, to disseminate so-called 'atomic bombs', mirroring the ideas of Igor Matovič. Matovič was an uncontrolled force during the pandemic, leading to his removal from the post of prime minister after a year (he subsequently became finance minister). Consequently, Slovakia presented a stark contrast to conditions in the Czech Republic, where the strongly populist but already experienced ruling party of Andrej Babiš (ANO) was in power and where there was a stronger tradition of relying on expert groups. Therefore, we conducted interviews with policymakers, including members of expert commissions, former government officials, parliament members from both countries, representatives from NGOs, academia, and others. These interviews aimed to delve into the dynamics of policymaking during the pandemic, understand policymakers' behavior, and assess whether they heeded advice from experts. Additionally, we carried out an attitudinal survey among residents of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, to see how satisfied they were with the policies, as the political leaders might have misread the views of the population. We complement this data with an analysis of protest actions against regulations and the role of populist movements opposing mask-wearing, such as the SPD in the Czech Republic or the ĽSNS action in Bratislava in the summer of 2021. Our aim is to analyze how these elements influenced policymaking. For this analysis, we rely heavily on newspaper reports and information obtained through our interviews.